Posts Tagged: agritourism

Nevada County, with gold country foothills and Sierra Nevada mountains, has almost 100,000 residents and many visitors. Nevada County Grown, dedicated to promoting, empowering and connecting local farmers, ranchers and food makers, is twelve years old and ready for new adventures. On Saturday and Sunday, July 7- 8, 2018, twelve local farms and ranches will host the public for tours, tastes, demonstrations, workshops and music at the first annual Nevada County Farm Trail Weekend.

Nevada County Grown board member Sammie Bass is coordinating the event. Today, a few days before the big weekend, she shared a little bit about the process and challenges of organizing something never done before in Nevada County.

Organizing participating farms and ranches: Sammie started planning the July event in April and May, so, understandably, communication with potential participating farmers was a major challenge. It was difficult to get clear answers from farmers about what tours, product sales and activities each would be offering to visitors, and to make sure that each participating farm was appropriately safe and prepared. Sammie visited each of the farms and worked with the owners to plan parking and safe access. Would room for ten cars be enough? Is the turn into the driveway from a busy road safe enough? She had no way to know.

Permits needed? Nevada County recently adopted new zoning ordinances that clarified that agritourism activities including tours, farm dinners and U-Pick are allowed by right on agricultural zoned lots over five acres. To make sure that all interested farms and ranches qualified under this zoning, Sammie shared her list of fifteen potential participants with the county agricultural commissioner. The Commissioner rejected several on the list as being less than five acres or zoned rural residential rather than agricultural, so not eligible to host visitors on their land without an expensive conditional use permit. However, as a work-around, these few farms are allowed to have farm stands and to sell their products during the event, but not host tours or other activities.

Insurance? Nevada County Grown required that all participating farms and ranches have liability insurance coverage of at least a million dollars, and that each list Nevada County Grown as an additional insured on their policies. In addition, Nevada County Grown has insurance coverage for events that they organize.

Day-of ticket sales? The Passport Weekend ticket (actually a wristband) is priced at $20 for advance sales and $25 on the day of the event. It was tough to organize enough volunteers to staff check-in and ticket sales tables at each of the twelve participating venues. Therefore, four visitor check-in hubs will be set up at four of the venues. If visitors show up at the other locations without wristbands, the participating farmers and ranchers will include them in tours and activities and instruct them to check in and pay at one of the four check-in hubs for their next stop.

Food? Lunch stop? Since this is the first-ever Nevada County Farm Trail Weekend, and since most of the farms and ranches are not set up to cater food for guests, Sammie investigated inviting a food truck to feed the guests. However, she could not promise more than 150 - 200 visitors total, which is not enough to pay for a food truck's time, labor and travel costs. Instead, the Nevada county Food Bank, one of the stops on the trail, will put on a barbecue, offering lunch for a donation (on Saturday at least) and giving tours of the Food Bank Garden. Farm Trail visitors may want to bring along a picnic this time.

Promotion: Good Day Sacramento came out and took videos, as did CBS13, helping to promote the event. In addition, local newspaper, The Union, interviewed organizers and wrote an article showcasing participating farms and ranches to local readers.

Sponsors? Maybe next year.

Sammie Bass and other Nevada County Grown organizers are expecting about 150 to 200 visitors for the first annual Nevada County Farm Trail Weekend. This will definitely be an adventure. If you see Sammie on the trail, be sure to say hello and thank her for her hard work. Learn more: nevadacountygrown.org/

California agritourism operators report regularly that navigating the permitting and regulatory process is a major challenge for farmers trying to invite the public onto their land for festivals, tours, dinners, classes, lodging or other activities. Some help is now available, at no cost, in some places.

Five Northern California counties offer non-enforcement person-to-person consultation to farmers and ranchers exploring the regulations and permitting requirements for agritourism, food processing or other farm-related activities. If your farm or ranch is located in Marin, Sonoma, San Mateo, Yolo or Solano Counties, you can call your Agricultural Ombudsman or Farmbudsman to discuss your ideas and plans.

County Agricultural Ombudsmen help farmers and ranchers understand what rules and regulations will apply to an individual diversification idea or plan, and will help them to navigate the various permits and departmental approvals that might be required. The ombudsman will make the process approachable and accessible, and will explore options and alternatives with the person planning an expansion or a new activity on his or her farm or ranch, including giving the farmer or rancher a sense of where "red flags" might be in the process. Importantly, these services are confidential. Marin County Agricultural Ombudsman Vince Trotter explained the job this way, "We try to bring the conversation to "How can we make this work?" We don't expedite the process ourselves, but we do try to bring the rancher together with the regulator."

Examples of Agricultural Ombudsmen's help include:

Helping a rancher understand the state registration process required for a new pond.

Helping a poultry farmer understand the state, federal and local regulations they needed to confirm to for on-farm commercial slaughtering.

Helping a pumpkin patch operator know when a permit is required for a farm dinner.

Explaining the size limits for starting a small winery under an administrative permit.

Helping a brewery and winery design their expansion to avoid buffer issues

Researching an existing use permit to clarify that a vineyard operator with short-term lodging was allowed to hold one-day open house events without an additional health department food permit.

In addition to their consultation work with individual farmers and ranchers, most of the agricultural ombudsmen organize useful information online - guides, factsheets and links to common permit applications. See the end of this story for contact information and websites links.

Marin County was first, creating the position of Agricultural Ombudsman in 2002 to ease the regulatory barriers faced by farmers and ranchers trying to diversify to ensure longterm viability of their agricultural operations. The county funded the position through a cost-share between county general funds and the Ag Commissioner's office. The Marin County Ag Ombudsman is not a county employee, but an employee of the UC Cooperative Extension. This distinction is important as the Ombudsman is perceived as a neutral, non-enforcement person with whom farmers and ranchers can freely discuss their ideas and plans. Lisa Bush held the position for twelve years until her retirement. The current Marin County Agricultural Ombudsman is Vince Trotter, who also wears the hat of UCCE Sustainable Agriculture Coordinator.

Following Marin County's lead, Solano and Yolo Counties both included the position of an agricultural ombudsman in their General Plans adopted by Solano County in 2008 and Yolo County in 2009. After years of discussions with interested stakeholders from the agriculture communities, the Boards of Supervisors in Solano and Yolo Counties and the Solano Community College Board of Trustees adopted in January 2013 a joint operating agreement to fund and manage a Farmsbudsman program that served Solano and Yolo Counties. Michelle Stephens served as Farmbudsman for both counties for three years. In 2016, Yolo County withdrew from the joint agreement. Currently Yolo County funds their own Agricultural Ombudsman position housed within the Agricultural Commissioner's office, working closely with the County Planning Department. Solano County continues the Farmbudsman program with Humboldt State University's Nothern California Small Business Development Center (Norcal SBDC) administering the program. Currently, the Yolo County Farmbudsman is Stephanie Cormier, also Cannibus Taskforce Manager; the Solano County Farmbudsman is Sarah Hawkins, who is also a full-time farmer.

The Sonoma County Agricultural Ombudsman position grew out of a Food Forum held in 2011 to improve the regulatory process for farmers. In July 2013 Sonoma County approved the position, which is administered through the Sonoma County UC Cooperative Extension and paid with county funds. The Sonoma County Agricultural Ombudsman is Karen Giovannini, who says that the ombudsman position comprises about 20 percent of her full-time work with UC Cooperative Extension.

San Mateo County's Agricultural Ombudsman position developed from a 2012 agricultural workshop organized by a county supervisor to help agricultural producers deal with regulations. The county put out a request for proposals to local organizations to administer the position, and the San Mateo County Resource Conservation District placed the winning bid to host the ombudsman. Adria Arko started as the San Mateo County Agricultural Ombudsman in April 2015. She works out of the San Mateo County Resource Conservation Service office, where she also works as a Program Assistant.

About thirty years ago, young organic farmers Dru Rivers of Full Belly Farm and Annie Main of Good Humus Produce were having trouble selling their dried-flower wreaths at small shops and art shows around Davis, so they had a little brain-wave. They decided to bring people out to the farm to see where the flowers were grown. To their surprise, two or three hundred people showed up for an afternoon at Full Belly Farm in the Capay Valley, a couple of hours northeast of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Dru gave a spinning demonstration and introduced the visitors to a few sheep. Annie, Dru and two other women in the wreath-making group gave a wreath-making demo and led a tour of the farm. Dru remembers, “ It might have been a potluck; we didn't sell any food. There was some sort of music, probably bluegrass. People walked down to the creek. The trail was all overgrown then; there wasn't a path. It was a miracle that people came, even some people we didn't know! We probably sold about five wreaths that day.” That was the first Hoes Down Harvest Festival and the start of a tradition enjoyed by thousands of Northern Californians.

A few months later, at the annual EcoFarm Conference of California organic farmers, an announcement on the bulletin board invited everyone to the second annual Hoes Down Harvest Festival, a fundraiser for the EcoFarm Conference, tickets $5 a person. There was no going back.

The annual festival grew by a hundred or more people every year. Dru Rivers was the primary Hoes Down coordinator for many years. Full Belly Farm partner Judith Redmond coordinated the volunteers. Annie Main was the brains behind the children's area full of farm crafts, ice-cream making, a huge hay fort, story telling and games. Other Capay Valley farmers and community members joined in the effort every year as organizing volunteers. Hundreds, and then thousands, of San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento farmers' market shoppers and Capay Valley farms' CSA members made the annual drive to enjoy the festival and visit the source of their vegetables.

In the early years, creativity thrived on a shoestring budget. Dru recalls, “for three or four years we used to to put up long irrigation pipes and string a huge nylon tarp that had come from Christo's ‘Running Fence' project to make a big tent.” These days, a crew sets up large festival tents and awnings for the event.

After running entirely on volunteer energy for more than fifteen years, the organizers hired a former Full Belly Farm intern, Gwenael Engelskirchen, as part-time Hoes Down coordinator in 2002. Gwenael, who now works with the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, says she started in late spring. The monthly organizing meetings at Full Belly Farm usually were ten or twenty people – each taking responsibility for an area; music, crafts vendors, kids area, food, even a committee on how to make the festival environmentally friendly. For many years, before biodegradable plates and utensils, Hoes Down organizers borrowed hundreds of dishes from Davis's Whole Earth Festival, which were washed by several shifts of volunteers all day and into the night.

The Hoes Down Harvest Festival has always been a community effort, drawing on the volunteer energy of Capay Valley farmers and community members for months of planning and on donations from food to equipment to art and wine for the silent auction. Gwenael remembers a big roll of poster paper taped to the wall of the barn about ten days before the festival, listing all the donations from farms, businesses and vendors, and the names of who would drive where to pick up what in time for the festival.

After months of organizing effort, another 400 volunteers show up for the festival to be part of what has become well-managed organized chaos. Gwenael says, “From a farming point of view, you watch the total transformation of a working farm to an event facility and back in a weekend. On Friday the volunteers arrive and set everything up – the tents, the tables, the stages and everything else. On Saturday, thousands of people arrive for the festival and many stay for Sunday tours and classes. On Sunday afternoon, the clean-up crew takes it all down. On Monday, Full Belly is back to work as a working farm.”

Dru Rivers and Annie Main have passed leadership of organizing the Hoes Down Harvest Festival to the next generation. Dru's daughter, Hallie Muller Ochoa, took over as Festival Coordinator six or seven years ago, and has now handed the job over to Claire Main, Annie Main's daughter. A young neighbor farmer, Annie Hehner, is now in charge of the popular children's area.

All of the proceeds from the Hoes Down Harvest Festival go to non-profit organizations that support sustainable agriculture and rural living. Over its thirty year history, the festival has raised about a million dollars. The 2016 Hoes Down Festival raised about $90,000. None of the money raised has gone to Full Belly Farm; it has all been donated to organic farming and local agricultural organizations. Beneficiaries include the Ecological Farming Association, Community Alliance with Family Farms, agricultural scholarships for local high school students, the local 4H club, Future Farmers of America, and other local organizations.

On October 7, 2017, Full Belly Farm is expecting five or six thousand visitors to celebrate “Still Dirty at Thirty!” – the 30th annual Hoes Down Harvest Festival. Everyone will enjoy music and good food and a circus. Some will do si do in the afternoon contra dance. Some will play in the river and shop for arts and crafts. Some will watch sheep be shorn and then card and spin some wool into yarn or carve pumpkins or paint gourds, or pet baby goats or churn ice cream. Some will go on farm tours and join workshops on creating herbal remedies or growing the earliest tomatoes. Many will dance into the evening, camp overnight in the walnut orchard, and get up Sunday morning to a hearty farm breakfast and more tours and workshops.

You are invited to bring friends and family to join the fun! Full Belly Farm, 16090 County Road 43, Guinda CA 95637

The University of California Small Farm Program and UC Cooperative Extension advisors in four California regions are working with local partners to organize Regional Agritourism Summits for everyone involved in California agritourism. The Summits will be occasions for farmers, ranchers, county planners, the tourism community and others involved to share, learn, and plan together.

Regional Agritourism Summits 2017

Agritourism operators, tourism professionals, county, city and state staff and officials, community organizations, agricultural organizations, tour organizers and all others who are connected to California agritourism are invited to join the conversations. Presentations and discussion topics will include county regulations; marketing plans; social media and event organizing training sessions; itinerary development; liability; financing ideas for agritourism development; and more.

Each summit was planned by a local team to best reflect the needs of the region, so each will be unique. Each summit will be a participatory, all-day session with lunch provided.

Participants are invited to bring marketing and organizational information to display and share.

UC Small Farm Program Agritourism ResourcesThe UC Small Farm Program has been working for more than 15 years with UC Cooperative Extension advisors and others to develop resources and connections for California agritourism operators. The UC agritourism website hosts useful factsheets and research. The online agritourism directory and events calendarhelps visitors find farms and ranches to visit. And, the monthly California Agritourism newsletter shares news and resources for the agritourism community.

Funding for this project was provided in part by the USDA Farmers' Market Promotion Program.

Many small-scale farmers and ranchers are considering inviting guests for overnight stays as an additional revenue stream and to educate guests, if they're interested, about agricultural life. We talked with some experienced farm stay operators this week to learn more. Each farm stay is as unique as the farm and the farm owner.

When Alice Kaiser first opened Casa de la Pradera in 1999, she put out the word to potential guests by leaving paper brochures at nearby wineries, then set up a website in 2001. She had no difficulty with the permits needed to open as a B&B in 1999. After a few years of operations she closed down, and then reopened the B&B in 2010. In 2010, the county requested some changes before she reopened in order to meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements.

Accommodations offered at Casa de la Pradera are two upstairs bedrooms in the main farmhouse with a shared bath for a cost of $110 per night per room, which includes a full cooked breakfast for all guests. Alice says that it is great that the farm stay law allows all meals to be prepared on site (unlike a simple B&B), although only about 25 percent of her guests, mostly families with kids, take advantage of her offer of other meals for an extra charge. In addition, there is a tent platform available for those who prefer to sleep outdoors, rented for $60 per night through HipCamp.

Guests now find and book at Casa de la Pradera through a variety of avenues. About 25 percent of guests are primarily looking for a farm stay experience. These are usually families who want their kids to see things growing, says Alice. The children enjoy planting seeds in flats and gathering eggs from the chickens. The guests who are most interested in the farm stay activities usually find Casa de la Pradera through Farm Stay U.S. or through the farm's own website.

About 75 percent of guests are looking more for a nice get-away, or comfortable quiet lodging than a farm experience. Some are couples on vacation; some are foreign tourists on a trek; some are bicycle touring; some are wine tasting; some are skiing at Kirkwood. Casa de la Pradera is listed on the official bike travel map, is about half way between Yosemite and Lake Tahoe, and is five minutes away from about 40 wineries. The guests who are not so much interested in the farm tend to book through Airbnb, Booking.com or Hipcamp.

The lodging business keeps Alice busy. The house is usually full in peak season, April through September, and had significant winter business for the first time this year. Keeping up can be a challenge, particularly because the busy season for guests is the same as the busy season for farm work. Alice is comfortable with the current visitor flow, although she hopes to encourage more year-round bookings, and may look for someone to help with the cleaning.

Cathie and John Orr really started the farm stay at Willow Creek Ranch in 2012, Cathie says, after experimenting with guests for a while over the years. The farm stay is a self-contained cabin that can sleep a group of up to 9 people, renting for $200 a night. The cabin has been converted from what was originally a chicken incubator house on the farm. The cabin has a kitchen, and guests are welcome to bring and cook their own food, or to enjoy meals that Cathie will provide for an additional charge. About half of the guests add Cathie's home-cooked meals to their experience. However, if they are vegetarian they are out of luck; Cathie says her cooking is not geared to vegetarianism.

Visitors mostly come during school vacations starting before or during Easter break and going into Christmas. Families love to introduce their children to the farm life and how it was in "their day." Other visitors like to come to the area to snow ski, or visit the many local wineries or Calaveras County events including the "Mark Twain Frog Jump" at the Calaveras County Fair in May.

Guests come to Willow Creek from all over the world, but most are from the San Francisco Bay Area, about two or three hours away. They sometimes find the farm stay through Airbnb, VRBO or through Booking.com, but more often are referred by Farm Stay U.S. If guests are interested, they can try to milk one of the eight farm cows, gather eggs, pick from the garden, help with weeding, or maybe bottle-feed one of the “bummer” lambs who were abandoned by their mother sheep. The farm has no cell-phone coverage and very limited wifi. Sometimes this is a shock to younger visitors, who can take a couple of days to get on board and enjoy themselves. Although Willow Creek Ranch is described as a farm stay on a working farm, Cathie says that some of her Bay Area guests seem to be expecting more of a theme park with a “farm” theme. Sometimes they are surprised and disconcerted that it is really a farm, with mud, cow poop, guardian dogs and all.

Initial start-up challenges included getting the cabin set up so it's livable and getting the farm ready so that guests could enjoy their experience. Also, getting the word out and finding insurance were both difficult. The current challenge is mud. Willow Creek Ranch is close to last year's Butte fire, and also to the site of another fire that came within a mile of the house. The recent rain on the burned land has caused so much mud that Cathie decided to close the farm stay for a few months until everything dries out.

Other than the mud, the trend of visitor bookings has been going well this year, even in late Fall and Winter, with the cabin booked from before Thanksgiving into January. This is partly a result of a feature story on “America's Heartland” last year, and partly due to some effective paid marketing through the San Francisco Chronicle's online travel section. In fact, Cathie had to turn some potential guests away over the holidays.

Cathie and John have just finished upgrading one of the bathrooms for better handicapped access, and have added new furniture to the common sitting area in the cabin. Future plans include creating a building or a campsite that would be able to accommodate larger groups, with needed restroom facilities.

Cathie Orr offers this advice for farmers or ranchers considering a farm stay:

You better be willing to take people who have different temperaments.

You have to join the Better Business Bureau, the Visitors Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce and other groups to get your name on all the lists and to get needed referrals, even if you don't go to the meetings.

Get your money up front! (Airbnb collects for you, but Booking.com does not.)

Mike and Nori Naylor have been operating the farm stay at their organic peach orchard for about six years now. For the first five years, guests stayed in two bedrooms, each with separate bathroom and private entrance from the outside, in the Naylors' remodeled ranch house. The farm stays always included a full cooked breakfast provided by Nori and Mike in the main farmhouse kitchen. About a year ago, the couple added another option for guests, a stand-alone 1960 mobile home with a kitchen. Guests staying in the mobile home supply their own food and cook their own breakfast, with Mike serving fresh-squeezed orange juice, Nori's home-baked muffins, and fruit in season. Rates range from $100 to $179 per night, depending on season and accommodations. Guest activities include U-Pick fruit in season and a farm tour.

Guests come from all over the world to stay on the peach farm, with the majority of guests coming from overseas. About half the guests are families with children, while the other half are couples or groups of adults. Visitors generally find the farm stay online, often through Farm Stay US, through calagtour.org, through the farm's own website or, most recently, through Airbnb. Being an organic farm helps draw some visitors. Many guests are on their way to nearby Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, but also enjoy the idea of staying on a farm. The mobile home has been more popular lately than the rooms in the ranch house, and was booked every weekend in peak season (Spring and Fall) while the rooms were booked less often. However, the whole house was full in February for the World Ag Expo, held nearby.

Permitting went smoothly with Tulare County for the farm stay start-up. Attracting visitors took a bit of time. Nori says that the timing of their start-up was perfect as people were beginning to look for farm experiences. She got the cheapest website she could find and listed the operation everywhere she could, including Farm Stay US, calagtour.org and other sites. The first year was a little slow, but that was good, Nori says, as they were still learning and also farming full-time.

Mike has recently retired from full-time farming and has sold or leased the commercial organic orchards, although he still helps and consults. The Naylors now operate the farm stay and a U-pick orchard. Last year they were a bit busier than they wanted to be. Mike says that he didn't get to go fishing once last summer and didn't get to many of the projects he'd hoped to start. Next year they will block off more days to give themselves a little more free time. They are also looking into expending the operation to include a campsite for guests.

Ruth Hartman has been running Coffee Creek Ranch for forty years, since she and her husband purchased the operation. Coffee Creek Ranch is a guest ranch, not a working cattle ranch, with fifteen cabins and a ranch house. Guests usually purchase a daily or weekly package that includes lodging, three meals a day, maid service, and multiple activities such as horseback riding, campfires, barbeques, fishing, archery, a pool, spa, rec room and kids play area. Prices vary from $199/night to $329/night depending on lodging, season, age of the guests and length of stay, with multiple specials during the year offering discounted stays for women, kids, grandparents and couples. Most of the guests are families with children. Ruth also offers cooking classes to guests.

The ranch is next to the Trinity Alps wilderness area and offers pack trips and hunting trips into the wilderness. Some visitors are not interested in the horseback riding or other activities, so Coffee Creek Ranch also offers a B&B option (lodging and breakfast) for $200 a night. Ruth says that she could make the business work if she could fill all the cabins as simple B&B lodging, but the horses, meals and other activities are needed to attract a full range of guests.

From the beginning a major challenge has been maintenance of the facilities and upkeep of the generator (the source of power for electricity). There is a need to remodel something every year. Ruth says she faces a challenge now finding good people to work at the labor-intensive operation. She is also experiencing difficulty recruiting enough guests. The ranch's season is Easter through Thanksgiving, and it was not full in 2016. To help attract more guests, Ruth is working with a marketing company to draw attention to her website. She will also be getting more help soon as her son joins the business.

Ruth Hartman offers this advice to potential guest ranch operators:

Research the market. It's hard to create a loyalty base, so decide what you want to bring to the table that is different and of value.

Understand whatever animals you will be bringing in. Learn about different breeds and select the most appropriate breeds for your operation.

Decide if you really want to open a business in California, considering all the regulations.